Kitchen Table Issues

The phrase “kitchen table issues “ is usually used in a political context, meaning issues that affect people in their daily lives. Sitting at the “table” is usually a white woman or white heterosexual couple, but maybe the rest of us won’t notice! The direction I’m going in is ”kitchen table issues” at our big table, in our house, on our farm in Iowa.

You have to have a big table to fit 13 children and 2 parents! It seemed like a football field or a boardroom table. It was rare that the table was not in use.  It was Grand Central Station, the command center for our family. Have to leave a note or check for someone? In prehistoric times, before cell phones, we could stick it in the clothes pin holder on the table. The table was where my parents read the daily and Sunday newspapers, and usually the papers remained there until  meal time. By laying it out on the table, you could see above the fold and below the fold at once and didn’t need long arms to hold it. Various family members would stop at the table, pick up a section to read, and sit for awhile. There were lots of  “Did you read that story about….?” The family that reads together at the kitchen table stays together.

The kitchen table was our game table and was the setting for many rowdy times! Card games, Yahtzee, Phase 10, dice games, you name it, were all played at the table, after the newspapers were removed of course. “ Anybody for a game of cards? It’s hard to think of that table without remembering all of the good times we had sitting around it trying to remember what’s trump? Some of my best memories of my Dad are set at the kitchen table. I “played” cards with my Dad and uncles as a little girl. I sat on my Dad’s lap and he picked a card out of his hand and told me to lay it on the pile. I often didn’t understand the good natured ribbing and laughing going on, but I knew I had a good, happy seat at the table. 

At least some of the time at big family gatherings, it was usually the men in the living room smoking cigars, and the ladies sitting at the kitchen table gossiping and discussing the issues of the day. As a girl, I  loved to sit at the table with my Mom and my aunts and Iisten to their lively discussions. I heard that the Catholic Church banned birth control pills, but my younger aunts said they were using them anyway. I heard about who was sick, who had babies and who liked to drink. I was especially excited when they disagreed about an issue and my Mom would end the discussion with some weak platitude about needing to sweep our side of the streets first, and everyone had to agree with that.   When I got old enough for a seat with the ladies at the kitchen  table, I was confrontational, and a know it all.  I missed the whole point of this gathering of women, which was to connect and be free to talk and be honest, without men in the circle and changing the equation.

Remember when you developed a roll of films and got photos that you could actually hold in your hand? My Mom had a big tin that held hundreds of photos before they were put in photo albums. If that tin came out to the table there was always filled seats around the table to look at the photos, identify people and tell stories about what was going on in the photo. The photos passed between hands at the table, and family history was passed around too. It was a low tech ancestory.com!

Weak coffee and good desserts set out on the table were part of many visits. Family members shared recipes for the desserts they brought. Time at the kitchen table was a recipe for sharing, connection  and love.